In 2024, the number of annual U.S. disasters costing at least $1 billion has nearly doubled, from 14 in 2018 to 28, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Also, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released in late February said FEMA has been made severely understaffed, hampering its response efforts to increasingly destructive disasters.

But lawmakers at the hearing seemed to agree that a federal role in responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters is needed, even as members of the subcommittee responsible for FEMA oversight acknowledged the agency needs an overhaul.

No FEMA 'Beatdown'

Michigan Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet noted the “bipartisan level of frustration with FEMA,” but said she is "not understanding the remedy, which is a suggested elimination of [the agency] and the suggestion that [disaster response] actually can be solved at a local level if states and locals would just budget more appropriately." 

Rivet emphasized that "having been a state senator on the [state] appropriations committee, states cannot handle this just by budgeting.”

Subcommittee Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said in his opening statement that “this is not meant to be a beatdown of FEMA, but we can’t just keep going the way we’ve been and expect different outcomes.”  

Chris Currie, Government Accountability Office director of homeland security and justice, said the nation’s disaster response programming across all federal agencies can be confusing to disaster victims. “We have to shift to programs that are not government-centric, but are survivor-centric … to be geared toward helping a person get the assistance needed at the worst time in someone's life.”

He said several federal agencies have disaster response programs, with requirements across the government as a whole that can be duplicative or even conflicting, and can make rebuilding efforts more challenging. Currie called for a solution “where the federal government provides the support that states will never be able to come up with, but does so in a way that it is provided to the state where there’s flexibility ... but still appropriate oversight and controls.”

Kevin Guthrie, executive director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, suggested that his agency’s approach could be a model for cross-government collaboration. It approaches disasters with the philosophy that “emergencies are federally supported, state managed and locally executed,” he said.  

Harris County, Texas Commissioner Adrian Garcia, speaking on behalf of the National Association of Counties, said while some states and counties have resources and capacities to respond effectively to emergencies, others do not. 

Virtually no one at the hearing called for FEMA to be abolished. 

The subcommittee’s top Democrat, Greg Stanton of Arizona, said there is room to make significant reforms at FEMA, but he criticized efforts to politicize the agency. 

“I will never support eliminating FEMA or conditioning aid for emergency disaster assistance,” he, referring to administration threats to withhold funds for California wildfire response based on its disagreement with policies of the state's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.